SHARE

A man was jailed for 17 years on Tuesday for plotting a terrorist attack in Australia after being prevented from travelling to Syria, with the judge saying he continued to hold extremist views.

Agim Kruezi, 25, was arrested in 2014 and pleaded guilty in the Brisbane Supreme Court to one count each of preparing for terrorist acts and planning a foreign incursion.

The court heard Kruezi, reportedly an Australian-born Albanian, planned to travel to Syria to fight with an Al Qaeda-affiliated group but was stopped by customs officers and his passport was cancelled.

He instead turned his attention to an attack on home soil.

Broadcaster ABC said police found a loaded semi-automatic sawn-off rifle, two balaclavas, two machetes, a photo-copy of a book titled Jihad, and an ISIS flag pinned to his bedroom wall when he was arrested.

Instructions to carry out beheadings were also discovered on his computer and in the days before his arrest, he purchased 10 litres of petrol and attempted to buy glass bottles suitable to make molotov cocktails, it added.